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Vegan dulce de leche

Just a quickie today (just to clarify, NOT an innuendo, it can't help but sound like one).
I am most jittery jumpy eager to share this li'l kitch adventure with you!

What comes to mind when one says "dulce de leche"? The name alone sounds decadent. It is made of milk-cum-suger-laden-syrup. Oodles of milk, boiled down with more milk powder and mountains of sugar to put candy mountain to shame.
This treat becomes matured, if you will, by a slow caramelisation of the sugars, until you have spoonable caramel pudding-sauce.
Ohmygoodness.

Well.....I made it:

easier

refined sugar-free

fast

vegan!?

Holy guacamole! I am psyched that it turned out good after the first try. Instead of stirring until my arm dropped off and the sugars caramelise, I simply used the true hero of all sweeteners: date. Free natural caramel flavour, sweetness AND fibre and minerals. Oh dates, how I love thee.
So dates and nice plant-milk, and a drizzle of vanilla, a pinch of thickener, and you have a beautiful caramel sauce to slather your desserts in.

Instructions:
Bring milk and dates to a simmer, and leave for 10 minutes.
Pour milk into blender jug through a sieve.
At this point you can cool the dates slightly and remove any skins that have loosened from the flesh, unless your blender is super anyway.
Add dates to the blender jug, and blend on high speed until super-smooth, about 1 minute.
Pour your mixture back in the pan and set to a steady simmer or soft boil.
Allow to cook down until it darkens from a tan to a deep caramel colour, and becomes slightly thickened. Now add vanilla rice flour and optional sweetener and continue to cook down until it becomes more gloopy. You can test it by placing a tiny spoonful on a cold plate and testing the thickness after a minute in the fridge. Once you are pleased with the consistency, you are done!
Pour into a mid-sized jar and store in the fridge.

*I used the words 'fave' since, with the condensing, all flavours intensify, so you want to be sure that is a good thing. I tried vitasoy soy + almond, oat + almond, and those were both pretty tasty!